Village of Dreams
by Victoria Hughes
Summary: CHAPTER 3 UP! A village in France is assaulted by near-daily severe thunderstorms. Convinced it's a piece of Innocence, the Dark Church sends Allen and Rinali to investigate. Intrigue! Serial killers! And . . . people General Cross owes money to? Uh oh.
1. Dark Skies

_Author notes: This story takes place loosely between the Rewinding Town (Miranda's introduction) Arc and the beginning of the search for General Marion Cross. It is set in the manga continuity. Although there are no formal pairings in this story, there will probably be platonic hints of Allen/Rinali (since the author ships them, ahaha). I hope you enjoy!_

_Chapter 1: Dark Skies_

A thunderstorm was starting.

Elisia dodged between the raindrops as she ran home, or at least she tried to. She wasn't very good at it, though, so she kept getting wet anyway, even though they were fat, slow drops. The sky had grown very dark and the wind had picked up just before school got out, and now the air was very still. Lightning flashed and Elisia jumped, shrieking at the thunder he wind.

"I hate thunderstorms--!"

It was the third thunderstorm this week. Rain wasn't very uncommon in the spring but lately the storms were worse than usual. Two days ago a tree had fallen on her friend's house after it was struck by lightning. All the moms and dads that Elisia knew always looked very tense and whispered to each other, and two weeks ago Eric had stopped coming to class. Everyone said it was because he was hurt by one of the storms, but nobody knew for sure. On Sunday the priest had said that God always knew what He was doing, but Elisia thought that God must be angry to send so many storms. Elisia wasn't even supposed to be going home alone today but she wanted to beat the storm home.

When she got home it was dark inside because of the storm, so Elisia lit a gas lamp and went to the kitchen, where her mom would be. But the kitchen was dark too. "Mom?" she called, feeling scared now. If her mom didn't appear soon she was going to hide under the covers of her bed until the storm was gone and only come out when her mom got back from wherever she had--

There was another flash of lightning, and Elisia shrieked again. When the thunder had passed, she lifted her lamp - she thought she had seen her mother for a moment--

Elisia's mom was there after all, but only her head. It rested on a platter on the table.

Elisia screamed.

&

_Three Weeks Later_

"Ah, I really dislike France," Allen Walker grumbled, bracing himself against the side of the carriage. The road wasn't designed for a carriage like this one, made of dirt and occasionally dusted with gravel, but it was too late now. They bounced along the road, Allen thinkng about how much more comfortable a hay wagon would have been compared to this formal contraption.

Rinali Li wasn't much better off, sitting opposite Allen. "Why is that? You don't just mean the roads, do you?" she asked, trying to be as polite as possible while clutching the seat to keep from being bounced too much.

"It's just the sort of place Master likes," Allen sighed. "Paris, France - a city of decadence."

In actuality, they were now south of the capital of France. Once again on the search for a piece of Innocence, Allen and Rinali had been dispatched together to a small town called Ville Reves about ten miles outside of Paris.

Allen laughed abruptly. "It's just lucky none of Master's debtors found us! That would have been unfortunate."

Rinali laughed nervously in answer. "H-how so?" she stammered, wincing as they went over a stone.

"Mm, well, sometimes it gets a little violent," Allen explained. "And--" But he was interrupted by the carriage pulling up to a halt. "Mm? We're here already?" He pulled aside the window curtains to see nothing but plains and a narrow but quick river. "Eh?" Allen poked his head out of the carriage. "Excuse me, why are we stopping?"

"This is as far as I can go," the carriage driver reported, his French accent thick. "See for yourself - the bridge has been washed out."

Allen exchanged looks with Rinali, and the two of them climbed out of the carriage. Indeed, the road led right over the river, but closer now it was obvious the river had once been nothing more than a creek. A stone bridge peeked out in the middle of the water but the rushing water had eroded away the road leading to and from it. "Oh ..."

"It's not a problem," Rinali murmured to Allen. "I can jump it with my boots." She raised her voice. "How far is the village from here?"

"Not more than two miles, but you'd best turn back and try again tomorrow - maybe the river will have receded by then. If you're lucky, that is," the carriage driver grumbled. "The weather lately has been terrible. Storms, one after another. I swear, it's like a curse."

Allen glanced at Rinali again. They had expected to hear this from locals. "We were first alerted by strange weather patterns," Komui had told them, "But now there are strange deaths in the area ... a serial killer is a small possibility, but ..."

Three Finders had been sent to Ville Reves two weeks ago, disguised as normal citizens. All three were now missing. With that news, the likelihood of an Earl operative had gone up dramatically. "The weather might be caused by a piece of Innocence," Komui had said, standing. "This is now the business of Exorcists. Go retrieve it!"

"We'll be all right." Allen smiled at the driver and handed him his fee. "This should be enough. Thank you for taking us this far."

The driver eyed them both, then sighed and reached behind him, handing down their luggage - a single bag for both of them. "If you get rained on, don't blame me," he warned, and turned the carriage around. "Hup hup!" And the carriage bumped away down the road.

Allen couldn't help looking up at the clear sky after that comment. "Really ...?" But he could see why the man was disgruntled. If the rainwater was disrupting his business, it had to be hard on him.

Rinali looked after the carriage. "He's gone. Innocence, Invoke!" With a flare of energy that lifted her skirts, her Dark Boots flared to life. She wrapped an arm around Allen's waist and Allen reflexively curled his arm around the back of her neck, grabbing their luggage with his other hand. "Hold on," Rinali warned, and leapt across the swollen creek with so little effort it was as if she was flying.

For Allen the experience was surreal and too short. The creek fell away and the opposite bank rushed up and then they were landing; Allen stumbled a little, staggering a step away from Rinali. Rinali smiled and her invocation ended, letting her ankle-length skirts once again settle around her legs.

Although normally as Exorcists they would have been dressed in their uniforms, for now they were supposed to be undercover. Usually this would be a horrible mission to send Allen on - his scar and hair were easy to identify and his face was known even by the Earl - but Allen's ability to see AKUMA before they transformed was invaluble. To protect against discovery, Allen was wearing a hat that covered most of his hair, gloves on his hands, and stage makeup over his forehead, hiding the upside-down pentacle scar. Rinali's clothes were plain and covered her boots, although they looked quite normal when not invoked.

"Thank you," Allen said awkwardly, and Rinali shrugged.

"It was the fastest way."

"Well, a two-mile walk isn't a problem for us," Allen remarked, swinging their suitcase over his shoulder. "We might as well get started, in case a storm really is coming."

They walked in amicable silence for a while. Their trip from England had gone rather smoothly. Paris had been a bit dodgy; while they had been kept up in a nice inn, it was hard to travel anywhere well-populated without running across AKUMA. For Rinali's part, she wouldn't have known anything was amiss except for Allen's eye. He covered his eye with his hand and smiled politely, but Rinali grasped his sleeve. "Are you all right?"

"Mm, it's hard to not do anything," Allen complained. Rinali could see the bitter edge in his smile now.

"We can't, though," Rinali murmured. They were supposed to avoid the Earl's attention.

"I know," Allen said, clenching his fist at his side. He lifted his gaze. "Ah, look, parfaits! Let's eat there!"

Rinali had let him change the subject.

Presently Allen was frowning at the sky. "Rinali, look," he said, pointing. Rinali followed Allen's finger. There was a line of clouds on the horizon; they didn't look very threatening, but it was almost possible to watch as they billowed skywards, great columns of white. "I guess that must be the unusual weather Komui told us about."

"I've never seen a storm form so fast," Rinali admitted. "If we don't hurry we'll get rained on."

"But aren't we hurrying towards the clouds?" Allen asked, smiling a little. But they picked up their pace all the same.

The clouds rose unnaturally into the sky as they watched, and then stretched across the sparsely wooded plain their path cut through. The town came into view as the wind picked up; Allen crammed his hat down on his head. Lightning flashed in the distance and thunder rumbled. Rinali couldn't help wincing a little at the sound.

Their feet hit cobblestone streets just as the rain started to come down. "Do you think a place this small has an inn?" Rinali asked over the wind; the townspeople were nowhere to be seen, sensibly indoors for the rough weather.

"We're not that far from Paris - there's probably at least one," Allen answered. "Ah, look, over there--" he pointed the way and Rinali shielded her face and followed him. The sign over the doorway swung wildly; Rinali couldn't read it before Allen opened the door and ushered her inside.

The room they stepped into was lit dimly by gas lamps; a young man was going about lighting the others with a long match, going between the empty chairs and tables scattered in front of a well-stocked bar. The windows rattled in the wind and rain, and the thunder was ominously close behind flashes of lightning. Allen touched the small of Rinali's back briefly before coughing politely. "Excuse me," he called. "We were hoping to get a room?"

The young man lighting the gas lamps looked up; his hair was in his eyes and he was pale. When he stood up squarely he was nearly a foot taller than Allen. "Bonjour, Monsieur, Mademoiselle. Je suis désolé, je ne parle pas anglais - mais si vous patientez quelques secondes, je vais chercher la patronne."

Allen blanched a little, his face screwing up comically. "Ah, um ... je suis desole aussi. Pardon, my Français is, er, mauvais." He paused, appearing to think. "Oui, nous ... nous voudrions obtenir une chambre, please."

Rinali simply waited, smiling pleasantly. Allen's knowledge of French was far more extensive than her own, although she could follow the proceedings slightly: something about the patron of the house and obtaining a room.

The man nodded and went behind the counter stocked with alcohol. "La chambre est à 30 francs par nuit. Est-ce que ça vous convient?"

Allen turned to Rinali. "He says the room is thirty francs per night. Is that in our budget?"

Rinali nodded, reaching into the small purse tucked into her petticoats. It matched her dark blue dress - her brother's design. "We have more than enough," she acknowledged, holding out enough money for five nights at that rate. Allen relayed the information while proferring the money, and soon the man was taking down a room key for them.

"Qu'est-ce qui vous amène dans--Mon Dieu!" the man exclaimed halfway through his sentence as the door banged open. The wind had torn the door from its jamb. He hurried around the counter, but Allen and Rinali both gasped with shock at the cold rain hitting their back and pressed the door shut together. "Ah, ah, je suis desole!"

Allen laughed nervously, his back against the door. "Non, non," he panted, smiling. "Le chambre, please? I'd - je voudrais mesécher."

&

The room was a single bed. Allen gestured and struggled with French in an effort to explain why this was not appropriate, but apparently there were no rooms with double beds. Rinali shook her head at the additional cost, and Allen apologized for the trouble. Soon enough they were alone, but not before the man lit both gas lamps in the room.

"Keep them lit throughout the storm," the clerk advised. Allen cocked his head at that strange advice, but the man said nothing more as he closed the door behind himself.

"I'll sleep on the floor," Allen offered as he stripped off his wet jacket and gloves.

"Nonsense," Rinali protested. "We'll share the bed. There's enough room," she pointed out. She picked at the tiny buttons that ran down her back, wanting out of the damp linen. "Can you help me?"

Allen had seen her in less clothes before, but he still blushed as he helped Rinali out of her dress. They laid out their outfits side-by-side to dry, Allen in his boxers and Rinali in her camisole and bloomers, and wrapped themselves in the blankets on the bed; they sat side by side and looked out the tiny window at the pouring rain. The storm showed no signs of letting up.

The approaching rain had so occupied Allen upon their arrival that he realized he had paid little attention to their surroundings. "A town this small, it likely relies on trade with Paris," he said quietly. "With storms this severe every few days, their crops are probably suffering. And this inn ..." Allen hunched his shoulders a little. "The common room was completely empty."

"No one wants to come here." Rinali didn't look away from the pouring rain. "Allen, where's the report Brother gave us?"

Allen turned to their shared suitcase and opened it, pulling out the sheaf of papers with details on the circumstances of their mission. At the same time, Timcampi shot up out of the briefcase. Allen startled, then laughed as the golem whizzed around the room as if stretching its wings. Timcampi had to stay hidden, since he was distinctive and golems were rarely seen far from the Exorcists. "Ah, hello, Tim." The golem made a few trips around the room before settling on the crown of his head. "Have I ruined your nest up there with my hat?" Allen asked mildly. Timcampi made no noticable reply, but it nuzzled Rinali's finger when she reached up to stroke its wing with a smile.

He handed the report to Rinali, and she flipped through it. "Mm, it doesn't say anything about the surrounding areas, but I wonder if it's extremely dry?"

Allen knew almost nothing about the weather or how it worked; he shrugged. "More importantly, where would the Innocence be? Do you think it might be floating in the sky?"

"Perhaps." Rinali pursed her lips. "Allen, doesn't it make you sad? Innocence is a weapon for God, but it always seems to do terrible things on its own."

Allen was quiet for a moment. It was true that Innocence, unchecked, seemed to cause horrible things; he had seen it power a murderous doll and lock a city into an endlessly repeating day. Here in this town it was causing such severe storms that livelihoods were destroyed and people were dying. But for him, he was unconcerned as to whether Innocence was a good or bad thing; it allowed him to do what he needed to - save the souls trapped on earth as AKUMA - and that was all that mattered. "God has a purpose in all things," he quoted, and smiled at Rinali. "Maybe we don't understand it."

Rinali sighed. "Mm. I suppose." Then she brightened abruptly. "Oh, Allen, perhaps we should try those translators Brother made for us! It will make things easier for you." She leaned over Allen to their suitcase and reached into the side pocket, pulling out the small devices.

They were egg-shaped, designed to fit in the ear. Allen took one from Rinali's outstretched hand and slid it into his left ear, founding it fit nicely. While it could not translate what Allen and Rinali said to others not wearing the device, it would translate what they heard to English. Thomas in the Science Department had been quite excited about the invention, half-talking over Komui who was almost as thrilled. Together they'd described very thoroughly how the translators worked; the explanation was completely wasted on Allen, who had nodded politely and said 'I see' when he thought it would be a good idea, but by the time they'd mentioned quartz vibrations he had been entirely lost.

He was a little apprehensive about using anything Komui had invented, but his French was pretty rusty and he didn't have time to relearn it properly. Rinali had not expressed any like concern, and she didn't speak more than a few words of French.

Allen jumped a little when he heard Rinali speaking in Chinese. The device in his ear made a staticy sound, then said mechanically, "Testing. UNKNOWN, can I be heard?"

Allen blinked. "I think it works," he said wonderingly. "Mm, Rinali, pouvez-vous me comprendre?"

Rinali laughed. "Yes," she nodded, "I understand! They work really well." She reached to take the device out of her ear. "I'm sorry you'll still have to do all the talking for us."

"Oh, no, it's fine," Allen hastened to assure her. Hopefully he wouldn't make any faux pas. "Master and I spent six months in Paris, so I learned a lot of French. I just need to refresh my memory."

"But while we were in Paris a lot of people spoke English," Rinali recalled.

Allen's smile did not falter, although he started to remember some things he would have been happier to forget. "We were in a very different part of Paris."

Just then a lightning flash and a simultanious crack of thunder so loud it deafened them both interrupted their conversation. Allen clapped his hands over his ears; Rinali jumped, letting out a little startled shout. They exchanged looks; that had been very, very close. Timcampi floated off of Allen's hair and whirred nearby as if curious.

A shout from downstairs grabbed both their attentions, and the device still in Allen's ear provided a translation. "Jean, Pierre's store -- a tree fell on it!" It was a woman's voice; Allen wondered if it was the Madame the clerk had mentioned before.

"Was anyone inside!?" This was the clerk.

"The store was dark! If someone was inside, it is probably too late," the woman replied, her voice dropping. After that it was impossible to hear more than muffled speaking.

Allen frowned; Rinali raised her eyebrows at him. "The store was ... dark? I don't understand what that has to do with anything."

"When we came into the room the clerk advised me to keep the gas lamps lit during the storm," Allen recalled. "It's very dark outside, but it seemed like strange advice. I thought perhaps I misunderstood him."

Rinali abruptly stood up, letting the blanket fall to the floor, and crossed the room to their clothes. "Allen, help me," she asked, struggling back into her dress.

"Rinali!?" Allen got to his feet and shuffled back into half-dry pants, throwing on his shirt but leaving it unbuttoned as he helped Rinali button up her dress again. Timcampi tried to burrow into the crook of Allen's shoulder as if finding the best recording angle for Allen's fingers on Rinali's back, and Allen batted it away irritably.

"Allen, there were strange deaths in the area. Remember the report? It said that some people were being beheaded and other gruesome things." She had to stand straight up so Allen could button her in. "Perhaps it only happens in houses that are dark!"

Allen hadn't read much of the report; reading comprehension wasn't his strong point, and Rinali was so smart. "I thought it was just rumors," Allen admitted, but he did her last button and tapped her shoulder to let her know before buttoning up his own shirt. "But I think we should see if we can help no matter what."

Rinali clasped her long black hair back into a single ponytail - she had no time to do more. Allen didn't bother to wear his hat or vest, only his gloves. The rain had lessened, but the sky remained preternaturally dark. "Tim, stay here," Allen ordered, but the golem bit his ear in response. "Ow! Please, Tim, you can't be seen." But the golem would not hear reason. "Oh, fine, come if you must!"

Together they both clambered down the stairs and out the front door of the inn into the thundering weather, the clerk left staring at the slammed-shut door.

_to be continued_


	2. More Questions Than Answers

**Chapter 2: More Questions Than Answers**

Visibility was terrible in the rain. The street was dark, any lamps on the road deadened by the harsh weather; the only light available was the faint ones provided by the lit buildings up and down the street. Allen shielded his eyes with his arm in the wind, blinking rapidly against the rain and wind. "Can you see anything?" he shouted to Rinali.

Rinali was peering in the same direction, but she didn't reply before a flash of lightning illuminated the building in question. Like many older villages in France, the buildings here were constructed sturdily of stone and mortar, but the tree that had collapsed was ancient and great - perhaps older than the town itself. The front of the building was torn open, the roof caved in the front; the lower branches had mostly destroyed the covered porch. Thunder drowned out Rinali's voice as she pointed. They ran closer, and now there were drenched woodchips under their feet - the strike of lightning that had toppled the tree had exploded its trunk at the base.

There was no way in through the front door, the branches were so thick there, so Allen scrambled up the side of the trunk and into the branches; there was a flare of light in Rinali's direction and she leapt to join him, her boots on brilliant fire with active Innocence. Through the collapsed roof it was possible to slip into the upper level of the store. Allen struggled through the branches and halfway fell into the destroyed room, abruptly aware of his drenched clothes clinging to his chest and arms and thighs in the almost-dry space. Timcampi flitted to Allen's side, shuddering from wingtip to tail to rid itself of excess water, then nestled itself between Allen's neck and collar.

It only occurred to Allen as Rinali slid in more gracefully to join him that no one one, up and down the street, had so much as opened their doors to survey the damage or offer help - even if no-one were friends in this town, surely cruel human curiosity would have driven them to come see, at least? He didn't voice his concerns.

They stood in a bedroom, that much was obvious, although the bed in question was broken in half by one great branch. A gas lamp lay shattered on the floor. Leaves and broken twigs were everywhere, and the floor groaned under their feet. It would have been too dark to see, but Rinali's boots lit the room.

"It's very quiet," Rinali murmured.

"The floor might collapse," Allen observed, beckoning for Rinali to follow him further into the house. "We'd best be quick." They went into the hallway, where the stairs crossed against the opposite wall; there were two more doors on the floor. Allen gestured to the far one and pointed to himself, and Rinali nodded, going to the first door. The doors opened to more shattered gas lamps, a bedroom and a sitting room, but that was all.

"It seems like no-one was home," Rinali observed in the hallway, ending her invocation.

"Let's check downstairs first," Allen suggested, and so down the stairs they went. It opened immediately into a general store, and a bit more light; the door was banging open from the tree branches that had ripped it from its hinges. The glass window was broken. The storm was finally slowing, but it was still dark, and the rain came down in a steadily lightening downpour. Water made the floor slippery, and Allen noted with some small dismay a batch of ruined flour. But for the damage of the tree and the wind and water, the only things in the room that needed repair was the gas lamps set in the wall - every single one had been shattered. The scent of burned air and gas and rain was overwhelming, but there was something else too, relatively faint: the smell of blood.

Allen frowned at this, but then he heard Rinali's strangled gasp. "Allen--!" He whirled and followed her voice around the back of the stairs, where a variety of cooking tools hung on the wall.

There sat on a shelf, casual as anything could be, the head of a dark-haired man, his face pulled back in a terrified grimace that seemed to slide off the side of his face. A bloody butcher knife was embedded in the wood beside its ear. Blood ran down the shelf, and now that Allen was so close the stench was overpoweringly horrible. Allen felt a bit green at the gills and covered his mouth and nose.

Rinali's hands were at her mouth and she was very pale, but if anything, she recovered more quickly than even Allen. "Th-this must be Pierre. Wh-where ... where is the body ...?" she asked faintly.

Allen looked away. He had seen a man beheaded before, another gift to him from this God-forsaken country, but even then the severed head had only been visible for a moment. To see such a thing on display--! Allen had never known even AKUMA to participate in such depravity.

But Rinali had a valid point; the body was missing. It wasn't even immediately evident that the act had been carried out within the store; as the sky brightened and the rain lessened, Allen realized there was no blood anywhere else in the room except pooling freshly under the man's head. "Was he even killed here ...?" Allen wondered.

"Where else could he have been killed? Or perhaps his body was t-taken away?" Rinali wondered aloud, wrapping her arms around herself.

"It would be impossible without spilling a drop of blood," Allen said quietly. He swallowed, closing his eyes. "If it was an AKUMA, it might be possible if the man was petrified first, but his head clearly ..." Allen swallowed back bile and took a few steps backwards. "And whomever did this, if they ran their tracks will be washed away by the rainfall."

Rinali touched his shoulder, and Allen opened his eyes again. "Allen, look." She pointed at the wall where the row of gas lamps lay shattered. "Don't you think it's odd that only the lamps were broken?"

"They were the only things destroyed in the whole house," Allen recalled. He licked his lips as he realized something else, and he grimaced. "We should leave. If we're found here, being outsiders, we might be blamed for this."

"But we just got here today," Rinali pointed out. Still, she followed Allen up the stairs to the hole in the roof where they had broken in.

The rain had dropped off to a drizzle; the sky was still dark, but the setting sun had fallen beyond the cloud cover and cast the whole street in orange hues. "It won't matter," Allen grunted as he pulled himself up on a branch. He offered his hand to Rinali, but she was already hauling herself up to his side. "I wouldn't blame them for being mis--"

"Hé, étrangers!" _Hey, strangers!_ translated the device in their ears.

Allen's shoulders jerked upwards and Timcampi squirmed against his collarbone. Allen twisted to look over his shoulder at the small crowd of people that had gathered at the base of the fallen tree. They were mostly men, and several had axes in hand. Allen froze where he was, and Rinali crouched beside him, silent. She cast him a glance; Allen shook his head. _No, none of them are AKUMA._ But even as he struggled for something to say, one of the men jerked his chin at the destroyed home-cum-shop. "Were you in there?"

Allen hesitated for a moment before admitting, "Oui." He opened his mouth to explain but the man cut him off.

"You friends of the folks that came here a few weeks ago? Strange ones, they were. Lurkers."

Allen looked at Rinali in confusion. "The Finders?" Rinali asked under her breath.

It was possible, but Allen didn't know if it would be wise to admit a connection to them. Allen changed the subject instead, stumbling over his French. "N-nous voulons aider," he said. _We want to help._ "Nous--"

"Your lurker friends are dead," the man interrupted again. Clearly he had little interest in what Allen had to say. "Like you, they foolishly entered a dark home in the storms. You are not dead - are you sorcerers?" His gaze lingered on Allen's face and hair, and drifted to Rinali, who was undeniably foreign in appearance. "Or witches?"

Allen and Rinali looked at each other again. How could they answer that? Innocence might appear as a sorcerous power to an outsider. But this was an Orthodox country; sorcery was condemned even more heavily in France than in England. It would be troublesome to be driven out of the small village. "Non," Allen said after a moment. _Should I say more? He'll probably just interrupt me again._ He motioned to Rinali to continue climbing down with him; his arms were starting to ache from bracing himself on the branches.

"Then why are you here, investigating fallen trees?"

Allen's lips twitched. "Why are you fearing dark places?" he asked in French, letting himself down off the last branch. He dusted off his wet pants ineffectually. "Once more we are hearing of - of keeping the lamps on."

The man shook his head and chuckled. "We are cursed," he said simply. Allen said nothing; the Frenchmen shifted on their feet, perhaps upset by their apparent leader's frank words. But the man simply stepped forward, closing the distance between himself and Allen to an umcomfortable couple of feet. "If your mute witch--" here he gestured to Rinali, who pursed her lips but said nothing - "-can lift this curse, then free us! Or leave before you share our fate." And so saying, he shouldered Allen aside. "Come, men!" He lifted his axe to the tree branches blocking the way into the shop.

Allen stood stiffly, turning to watch the men's tedious work, done in tense silence. Rinali faced him, but her gaze didn't lift from the ground. "I haven't been called a ..." she trailed off, as if thinking better of the statement, and glanced over her shoulder at the working men. "They hardly said anything worth hearing."

Allen licked his lips before speaking. "They're very superstitious." It was only natural, with such unexplained phenomena occuring around them on a daily basis, if the reports were to be believed. "But ..." if they were truly superstitious they should have feared sorcerers and witches in their midst. They should have been calling on the church to save them, exorcise their town.

_I didn't see a church steeple._

Allen's lips parted at the sudden realization. This town was very old. There should have been a formal Catholic church here. Where was it? He snapped his head up, looking up and down the street, squinting into the dying sunlight.

"Perhaps we should go dry off again," Rinali suggested _sotto_ voice.

Allen shook his head slightly. "Yes," he agreed awkwardly.

&

"There's no church in this village."

Rinali settled herself across the wood paneling of the floor in a perfect center split and slowly lowered her torso to lay flat on the ground. Like Allen she was down to her smallclothes; their outfits had been laid out to dry again along the edge of the room.

Allen was balanced on one hand, his toes pointed to the ceiling, doing pushups. Rinali watched him with her cheek pressed against the floor; his balance was exquisite, barely wavering. "Is that unusual?" Rinali asked.

Allen dropped his left hand to the ground to join the other and carefully left his handstand in a back walkover. He gave Rinali a surprised look. "Well - perhaps not, in England," he mused. "But this town is very old, and France is Catholic Orthodox. The cathedral should be the centerpiece of the village; it should have been the first thing we saw."

Rinali mentally filed the information away as useful. She had little use for the organized religions of the West, even though the Black Order was associated with the Vatican; she had never seen any reason to take especial note of the practices of Europeans in regards to their God. If she were to be perfectly honest, she was feeling a little bitter. It was silly to feel that way, but the last time she had been called a witch--

It didn't bear thinking about. Rinali gracefully raised her torso off the floor and stretched over her left leg. "I think we should focus on the murder of Mr. Pierre," Rinali pointed out, redirecting the conversation.

Allen dropped onto his back, crossed his ankles, and began doing curls with his arms behind his head. "Do you think it's a lead on the Innocence?" he asked.

Rinali had no idea. She could still see the severed head in her mind's eye, sickening her, but she stared hard at the far wall until the image left her head. "I can only think of two things that would be able to perform that murder; AKUMA or something possessed by Innocence. Perhaps Mr. Pierre was an AKUMA ...?" she trailed off, looking at Allen questioningly.

Allen glanced her way and offered a brief smile. "I don't know; I would have to have seen the skull. Once the soul has gone I can't see an AKUMA any more." But he seemed to think of something then. "You didn't touch the blood, did--"

"No," Rinali answered, cutting him off. If Pierre had indeed been an AKUMA, his blood would be poisonous as the bullets fired by Level Ones. "We would have seen the signs by now if I had."

Allen merely sighed in relief, still doing curl-ups. "Still, it seems strange that an Innocence could only operate in the dark. Why would it shatter all the gas lamps? If that's what's causing it, I mean. And why leave the head?"

Rinali twisted to stretch over her other leg. "I've seen Innocence do many strange things."

"But the Finders disappeared ..."

"That could be the work of AKUMA." Rinali laid her head against her knee. The Innocence could be effecting the weather if it needed the darkness; it would then attack the AKUMA through, perhaps, its Accomodator, or whomever it possessed. It would be best if it was an Accomodator, or the Innocence would destroy the person using it. Even Accomodators were hardly safe from its power.

Allen 'hmm'ed. "You've been with the Order a lot longer than me, and I never met another Accomodator before I came there," he observed as if talking himself into assenting to Rinali's assessment. "I hardly know what Innocence can do."

Rinali looked over at him. "You don't agree, though?" she asked mildly, curious what Allen was thinking. Although he may not have been with the Order long as an Exorcist, he had been trained by General Marion Cross, after all.

Allen tilted his head slightly, his shoulders jerking into a shrug, but he didn't stop his regimen; his breath came a little short now. "I don't know." He paused for a few situps. "I might just be effected by all the talk about sorcery." He laughed shortly.

"My brother says that sorcery is hardly practiced in the West," Rinali protested. "I thought it was strange they would talk about it so ..." _Cruelly._ "Casually." She got to her feet and arched over backwards into a bridge, bringing her feet and hands within a foot of each other.

"Oh," Allen panted, grimacing, "It isn't a dead art yet. It just - well, in the right hands - it's still very effective. Take Timcampi, for example. Speaking of which ..." Allen rolled from a situp to a standing position. "Tim? Tim, where'd you--oh. _No._"

Rinali looked at him quizzically; Allen was staring at the bed. "Tim, did you record all of ... this?"

Rinali walked out of her bridge back to her feet, blinking. Timcampi had floated off the bed; the golden golem was bearing its teeth as if in a smile. Allen had gone quite pale. "Erase that! Erase that whole last conversation! Ow!"

Timcampi did not seem inclined to do as Allen ordered; it bit Allen's ear. Allen grabbed at it in frustration. Rinali sighed. "Allen, we were just working out. We can't help it if we have to share a room."

"Do you think your brother will see it that way!?" Allen asked, his hand fisted around Timcampi's tail. "I mean it, spit it out! Or should I feed you to an alley cat!?"

Rinali couldn't help the small giggle that escaped her at the comical scene; she had never seen any member of the Order actually have to fight with their golem to get it to obey. But Allen could not be coaxed from the fight until Rinali had promised to explain everything to her brother, if it came to that.

"Where will we resume the investigation tomorrow?" Rinali asked as she braided her hair back for sleep.

Allen shrugged as he sat on the bed facing away from Rinali, scrubbing his left hand through his hair. Rinali would never have said anything, but she was impressed by how casually Allen could treat the hand embedded with his Innocence, how it behaved just as if it were a real, normal hand. She wondered how long Allen had struggled and suffered to obtain that kind of control. "I think we should talk to the farmer who told us this place is cursed, to start," Allen said. He didn't look back at Rinali. "And then, we should check the graveyards."

"The Earl of Millennium leaves no mark on the graves," Rinali said automatically.

"But a sorcerer might," Allen said, throwing back the covers. "Goodnight, Rinali."

Rinali crawled under the covers on her side of the bed and stared at the far wall, thinking of a severed head and bones, sinew, rotted flesh: maggots and overturned graves, and dark voices behind the door.

"Brother," she whispered, "please protect me." And she closed her eyes.

_tbc_


	3. Outsiders

**Chapter 3: Outsiders**

_Allen pounded down the stairs of the inn, his heart racing. It had finally happened; Cross had managed to kill a prostitute with sex and alcohol. The dead woman lying stiff on his master's bed smelled as though she had already been gone for days, and for all Allen knew, she had been; Cross had threatened to beat Allen with a cane if he came into Cross' quarters for the last week._

Master sat in the common room with a glass of wine. The rest of the bottle was at his elbow. "Master!" Allen panted. "Master, there's a dead girl in your bed!"

Cross didn't even bother to look at him. "I know, idiot apprentice," he said. "And you don't want to know what trouble I went to get her."

Allen's jaw fell open. He had known Cross had a number of ... questionable habits, but sleeping with someone who was already dead? That was ...

Cross' boot came up and caught Allen in the solar plexus; it wasn't a hard blow but it was enough to send Allen to his knees, winded. "Idiot! Questioning my practices isn't your place!" he snorted. He sipped his wine while Allen's breath hitched in his throat. "Better get used to her. Until I find a safe place to store her, she'll be with me." He took a moment to look down at Allen with a half-lidded eye. "And her name isn't 'dead girl'. It's Maria."

&

Allen sat up suddenly in the bed, gripping the sheets under his fingers with wide eyes. _Nothing ... just a dream ..._ He shuddered involuntarily. Maria was one of many things about his Master that he would have been happier to forget.

"Allen ...?" Rinali, woken by the rocking of the bed, rolled over and rubbed her eyes.

"Nothing," Allen offered, looking out the distorted glass of the window at the gray-purple-pink sky of early dawn. He smiled. "Would you like the first bath?"

&

A 'bath' here consisted of filling a basin with water and using a rag to wet, soap, and rinse all parts of the body. There was no separate room to do it in. Rinali forgot from time to time how spoiled they were at Headquarters, with the running water the scientists had installed for working toilets and showers.

Once they were both washed and dressed, and Rinali had painted Allen's scar to skillfully hide it under makeup, they went to the common room. Timcampi was shut into the bedroom, left zooming angrily around the room as if in protest. The common room was painfully empty; only an elderly woman sat at a table by the window, reading a book with half-moon spectacles perched on her nose.

"Ah, excuse me," Allen said in French; the device in their ears translated for Rinali. "Where is breakfast gotten?" His French translated strangely; Rinali wondered if it was a quirk of the device, or if Allen's French was simply rather poor.

The woman looked up, her eyebrows raised. "You are early risers," she said, not unkindly. "I have a batch of bread almost done, and there is honey for dipping and milk to drink. If you wish it, I can cut cured ham for you. The charge is three francs."

"That would be fine, thank you." Allen smiled at her. "May we sit anywhere?"

"Do you see another customer?" the woman asked archly. She put down her book, getting to her feet stiffly, and shuffled out of the room.

Rinali took a seat at a table in the middle of the room and Allen sat opposite her. "Might we drink water instead?" she asked, knowing that milk tended to disagree with her.

"I wouldn't recommend it." Allen looked awkward. "With the storms as they are, the rivers are swollen and stirred up, and any water for drinking would need to be cured first. It's all right for bathing, but ... if you don't wish milk, you should ask for beer before water."

Komui knew about the sorts of parasites that could be in impure water, but Rinali hadn't considered that. Allen was a reservoir of strange knowledge from time to time. "But don't you hate alcohol?"

"Master never drank beer," Allen answered absently, although it wasn't exactly an answer. He seemed distracted.

The reason appeared a moment later, when the elderly Madame reappeared with crossiants and ham piled on a platter, with two saucers of butter and honey and two cups full of milk. The smell was heavenly. Allen's full attention was on the food. "Three francs," the woman reminded them, and Rinali fished the coins out of their bag. The proprietor snatched up the money and put down the platter, and for about ten minutes Allen could not be spoken to as he ate as if he had not seen food in days. Rinali reflected that perhaps the reasoning for putting them on reconnaisance together was because Rinali's small appetite might have made up for the expense of Allen's large one.

When the edge had been taken off Allen's hunger he slowed down. Rinali polished off a crossiant and licked her thumb clean of honey. "We should ask her about yesterday," Rinali suggested, waving her hand vaguely in the direction of the Madame.

"We should ask everyone we can about the strange occurances," Allen agreed. He aborted a glance over his shoulder at the reading woman. "I think she's a gossip-hound."

"Do you?" Rinali asked mildly. She wished, not for the first time, that she spoke more than three words of French. "... there's not much I can do, not speaking the language."

"Mm, well, they think you're a witch, and I'm a sorcerer - or at least, some of them do," Allen observed. "If you wandered around the graveyard, no-one would think it odd. I'll talk to the villagers and you could look for desecrated graves, perhaps?"

Rinali frowned at the table. "Do you know what backwards towns do to witches?" she asked softly.

Allen was silent for a long moment, but then he reached across the table and patted her hand, once. "Rinali ... I pity the fool that would try to hurt you." Rinali glanced up at him in surprise; Allen was giving her a disarming smile. "Besides, finding the graveyard will be half the battle. There's no churchyard to put it in."

&

They parted company immediately after breakfast.

Allen slid into the seat opposite the Madame of the inn, waiting patiently until she looked up from her book. "What do you want, young man?"

"I wanted to thank you for the meal," Allen said, giving his most pleasant smile.

"Mm, I'm quite sure," the Madame intoned with a conspiratorial smile of her own. "You're no tourist. Gaston spoke with me last night; he says you are sorcerers seeking strong magic. Would you like me to tell you what I know?"

Allen saw he was right; the Madame had her finger on the pulse of the village. "I already know about the dying people, and the daily storms," he said slowly. "Unless you know the secret of how the killer spills no ... mm, but of course you wouldn't."

"But of course I would! Do you see constables here? We are our own law, and Paris cannot help us as long as the creek is swollen. I know all the details. The bodies are never found, only the heads, and there is never a drop of blood on the ground apart from the point of severance. And no-one has died in a home where the lamps are lit."

"Do you know who could do these things?" Allen asked. "Is there a person in the town that you suspect ...?"

"No man could do it." The Madame marked her place in her book and set it aside. "You are from England - don't deny it, your terrible accent tells me! - so perhaps those godless people wouldn't notice. But our church has been burned to the ground."

That solved the mystery of the church. "No-one rebuilt it?" he asked, honestly surprised.

"I was only a very little girl when this happened," the Madame said with a crooked smile. "They said the priest himself set the fire, and burned himself in it." She sighed gustily. "You may imagine that shook the faith of some. The stones were torn down to the cornerstones, and the old church was built over - and we have not had a priest, nor a church, since those times." The Madame leaned forward, and Allen leaned with her, assenting to her conspiratorial air. "It's God that's killing those people," she said with conviction. "Taking vengeance on our town to the third and fourth generation of those who sinned against him. You believe in God, boy, or are you a sorcerer like Gaston says?"

Allen hesitated for a moment before saying slowly, "We both, my friend and I, work for the house of God Himself, the Vatican." It was true, loosely speaking. "If we seem to do magic it is just the miracles of God's hands. But the grip of evil is strong here, so I tell you this in confidence." By making it a secret Allen was relatively certain he had made sure the news would spread all over the village by nightfall. He hoped it eased Rinali, who was clearly not at ease with being called a witch.

He wondered how many AKUMA would come out of the woodwork on the word they might be priests, as well. Whether it was Innocence or AKUMA performing the murders, grief begat grief; it would be unimaginable that so many people dying had not caused at least a few villagers to succumb to the Earl's seduction.

The Madame's eyebrows rose with delight. "Oho! Then perhaps my prayers have been answered!" She placed a weathered hand on Allen's arm. "Young priest, rest assured that you will come to no harm here. I pray every day, and God does not strike down the godly woman."

Allen smiled. "Thank you, Madame. Now, this Gaston ... perhaps I might talk to him more about curses and sorcerers ...?"

&

Rinali was given wide berth when she walked down the streets, but no-one attempted to assault her and no-one insulted her or even so much as gave her a dirty look. Some children pointed, but Rinali supposed that might have been because she was an unfamiliar face, or because she looked so different from these white Europeans. She kept her chin high and plastered a pleasant smile to her face and walked to the outskirts of the town to search for an appropriate place for a graveyard.

In China it was customary to put the graves of the family on the grounds of one's home. Rinali found it odd that a common plot would be used by a whole community. Perhaps this was a regular practice in all cities? She had not lived in the great cities of China. Did farmers keep their bodies close to home? To leave them here, it seemed like abandonment. _Such a common thing in Europe_, she reflected. No-one cared about family. But Europeans seemed to despise useless things and nothing was more useless than the shell of a human.

The day was dawning bright and sunny, as if the storm of the evening before had never happened, but she passed a school and saw the students sitting out in the yard, the roof of the building gutted by fire. Rinali wondered how many people had been killed like Pierre. What did they do then, without the body? Did they just bury the head? She had heard of the custom of viewing, but how could you do a viewing with just a head, grimacing in fear at you?

She came then to a clearing, dotted with headstones; unlike the great cemeteries of London, there were no iron gates to bar her way, only a low stone wall. She walked along it, looking over the long shadows cast by the grave markers, running her fingers over the still-damp masonry. Across the graves were a few wood houses, but the town seemed to peter off into farms from there.

Rinali began to walk the perimeter, wondering where the funeral bier entered. Or perhaps this graveyard was entirely enclosed, forbidding small children from seeing what lay in their inevitable future.

&

Allen had guessed correctly that Gaston was the man who had spoken to Allen and Rinali in the drizzling rain the night before, but he had been wrong about Gaston's vocation. He was the apprentice glassblower at a kiln; the glasses that Rinali and Allen had drunk out of that morning had been made by his master.

The heat in the kiln room was nearly unbearable; Allen could feel the makeup on his face melting under it, and brushed his bangs across his eye in hopes of hiding the pentacle scar. Gaston was alone - odd, Allen thought, if Gaston was the apprentice - stoking the fire when he spotted Allen lurking just inside the door. "What business do you have with me, sorcerer?" he asked, wiping his dirty hands on a rag just as dirty as he crossed the room.

Allen gestured towards the door. "Can we speak outside?"

Gaston glanced over his shoulder at the stoked kiln and nodded. They stepped out into the sunlight and clear air. In the light Allen could better see that Gaston was younger than he had first thought, though he was growing in a beard and widely built. Gaston raised his eyebrows when he looked at Allen now. "I thought you were a spry old man last night, but I wonder if you've even passed thirteen years, now! Can you change your face but not your hair?"

"I cannot shift my features. You were mistaken," Allen said in a long-suffering voice, pleased that his French was coming easier now. "I wanted to speak with you about the curse." He had passed the store where Pierre had died on his way here; four solemn men had been hacking apart the ancient tree. It would be several days before the whole of it was dismantled. Nobody had wept, either this morning or last night. Pierre, whomever he was, seemed to have no-one to mourn him.

"Surely you and your lurking friends would know more about it than I," Gaston said flatly. "Were you not sent by Moisieur Ludwig de Salle?"

"Ah - by whom?" The name tickled the back of Allen's mind, but he couldn't think of a reason why.

Gaston sighed. "Then our money was lost?"

By now Allen was bewildered. "What? What money?"

"Monsieur de Salle, in Paris!" Gaston threw up his hands. "He is said to know exorcists, sorcerers, and to be one himself! Surely his name is known by your kind throughout the world! We sent him money before the creek overflowed, asked him to send us help ...?" He looked at Allen expectantly.

"Ah ... well," Allen started to temporize. "As I told you last night, we are not sorcerers. Monsieur de Salle did not send us. I'm sorry to disappoint." Ludwig de Salle? Surely the first name was Germanic, and where had he heard that name before? Did he actually have ties to the Exorcists? Allen tried to steer the conversation back to where he wanted to go. "But you said you've been cursed. How so? Who do you think did it?"

Gaston looked thoroughly disgusted to see that Allen wasn't who he thought he was, or he thought Allen was merely playing his cards close to his chest. "I had hoped that Monsieur could tell us who did this," he said, looking at Allen hard. "After all, it was surely another of his kind."

So Gaston thought it was a sorcerer. "Do others agree with you?" Allen found himself asking, and he worried that other villagers would be less kindly disposed towards Rinali than Gaston.

"Yes ..." Gaston drew the word out, watching Allen's face. "And we who sent money swore to Monsieur de Salle that we would not harm a magician that came to us, if they would only help us."

"I see." Allen couldn't help how his voice brightened at that. He cleared his throat. "And why would a sorcerer curse your town?"

"How should I know? The ways of magic are strange to us and ours," Gaston answered with the tone of a phrase learned by rote. He grit his teeth, making a fist. "Damn that man, Ludwig! Surely he could at least send back our money!"

Allen licked his lips. "How did you come to hear about the Monsieur?" he asked.

&

Rinali wasn't sure how she would be able to tell what graves were desecrated; here, the plots were all fresh, the earth still brown and packed by rain. As she walked around the perimeter of the graveyard she came upon a little girl, standing alone before a fresh grave. Rinali paused, wondering who in her life had died. The girl's eyes were completely dry; her face was blank as she stared at the headstone.

Rinali hopped the low stone wall and crossed the graves, walking carefully between overturned plots. Soon she was close enough to see the name and dates written on the headstone: a woman who had died in her thirties, three weeks ago. The girl's mother, then.

The little girl turned to look up at Rinali. "Who are you?"

Rinali hesitated. "Rinali," she said finally. What else could she say? She didn't speak any French.

"You're not from around here." The girl stared at Rinali with unblinking eyes. Rinali shook her head. "Why'd you come, then?"

From over her left shoulder Rinali heard voices; she twisted to see two men carrying shovels, talking quietly to one another. Gravediggers, then. Rinali turned back to the girl. What had Allen said before ...? "Nous volouns ah ... aider," she offered, certain her accent was terrible.

"That's what the other strangers said," the girl whispered, dropping her gaze for a moment. "You should die, too." She smiled.

Rinali's eyes widened and she took a step back in alarm; a moment later the girl erupted from her skin, all stone and guns and a terrified, weeping mask set in her egg-shaped body.

Rinali set her teeth. _Invocation!_ Her Dark Boots flared to life, clinging to her calves and thighs like a second, supple skin, and Rinali leapt skywards. AKUMA bullets tore up the ground where she had stood. She twisted in midair and brought down the heel and ankle of her boot against the upper shell of the AKUMA, cracking it, and its innards parted like warm butter under her assault. With a scream the AKUMA perished, exploding into a thousand vanishing particles; Rinali landed in a crouch, perched on the headstone of the very woman the girl had once wept over and sold her soul for.

The battle had lasted little more than ten seconds. Belatedly Rinali remembered the gravediggers; she twisted to look over her shoulder, not a moment too soon. "Exorcist!" hissed the two twin AKUMA, their skin already shed.

Rinali sprang to the battle.

&

Allen resisted the urge to bang his head against the stone wall as Gaston explained. "It must have been about four years ago, now ... we had some trouble then, too, although I was a little young to know just what. A man with red hair in a long black coat trimmed with silver came and helped us, and he told my father that should we ever have trouble again, we should look to Monsieur de Salle."

Allen licked his lips. Four years ago Allen had been in western Germany, burying Mana, which meant the timeline was just about right for ... "Does the name Marion Cross sound familiar?" Allen asked, pale under his makeup.

"Ah, yes, that's right! Do you know him?" Gaston asked, giving Allen a doubtful look.

"Yes," Allen groaned. "Thank you for the help. I'm sorry to have interrupted your work." Allen twisted away, ignoring Gaston's nonplussed look as he trudged down the street.

Ludwig de Salle ... it must have been someone his Master had dealings with in Paris. Was that where the name was familiar from? He recognized that sort of cryptic talk. _Ah, Gaston, I do not think Master meant that you should go to de Salle for help. I think he meant you should _blame_ him!_

He went to go find Rinali; they were going back to Paris. He did not notice the dark clouds gathering on the horizon, matching his poor mood.

_tbc_


End file.
